Politically, he’s a novice — an outsider candidate without the celebrity cachet of a Kevin O’Leary or the deep caucus contacts of an Andrew Scheer or an Erin O’Toole.

But Conservative leadership candidate Rick Peterson says he’s not in the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race to set himself up for a cabinet position down the road. He’s in it to win it.

And the Vancouver businessman insists his chances of success “are excellent.”

Peterson, a former journalist turned investment banker, acknowledges that he’s a low-profile candidate, but says he’s got mad contacts — former prime minister Brian Mulroney, he says, was the one who contacted him over the summer and strongly encouraged